[MR] Any Linguists In The Tavern?

[Dave Montuori]

> I remember a linguistics class from long ago where the prof mentioned a
> bunch of patterns in Old English that carry through into modern English.
>
> There was the -som suffix, which makes a property into an adjective:

more specifically, a noun into an adjective whose meaning is related but
not obviously...

there is also the -ly suffix which makes adjectives out of nouns
(e.g. friend -> friendly), a suffix cognate to modern German -lich meaning
"like".

> There was the -ester suffix, which indicates that a word has an opposite:

This one's a new one on me, and the examples given are a stretch at best.

> >From the Latin side, we get agent/patient tags in words, which tell us who
> is the doer and who is the done-to.  Active parties are -ers, -ors, and
> -ists, while passive parties are -ents, -ees, and -ects.

Sorry, -ent denotes an active party (from the gerund). One cannot claim
that "detergent" is a passive thing and be taken seriously.

> (As a linguistic determinist, the prof was convinced that social
> hierarchy was of a piece with the language that conceived it.)

Aha. I'm convinced that certain aspects of linguistic determinism are
politically-motivated hooey.

> I was trying to explain some of these patterns to my 2nd grader, who is
> wrestling with the subtleties of spelling.   Do any of you know of a good
> book on such things?

One of my grade-school grammar/spelling books was unnusually good at this
sort of thing, but I'll admit that most of my knowledge came from digging
it up on my own after said textbook piqued my interest. Sorry to say, I
don't have any direct knowledge of a good book about this; but if asking
the Rose doesn't pan out you might try asking SCAHRLDS, to cast a wider
net among linguists.

Evan
(historical linguistics buff and not-exactly-closet onomasochist)